Balk's problems are not unique. Several placement officers at leading business schools report that more and more M.B.A. students want to work for small companies. Many already have big-company experience and now want a job in which they can have more impact, says Priscilla Geer, associate placement director of the Tuck School at Dartmouth. Geer, for one, has started a direct-mail campaign to promising small companies, requesting brief profiles from them to help students job hunt.

But M.B.A.s who want to work in small companies still face a challenge finding them. And if small companies don't reach these students, large ones will. That happens already: Max Haynes, executive director of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, reports that he knows of several large corporations that prefer to recruit entrepreneurship students.